Race 23 of 60 @ 60: Muncaster Luck

Misty on Muncaster Fell I was running with a group which drifted a bit too far left between checkpoints one and two. Spotting a wall on our right I pulled up thinking that we'd missed Silver Knott. Big mistake - wrong wall. Several others stopped, having no more clue than me where they were. I headed back quite some way before trying again and finally, using map and compass, I firmly relocated on a wall corner. Meanwhile, phones appeared out of bumbags and consequently I arrived last at the checkpoint.

The ironic thing is that in my opinion the FRA prohibition on the use of GPS is simply daft. It's completely unenforceable and more importantly, all organisers want runners to arrive at the finish safely and not in a neighbouring valley. I use my phone when I'm uncertain in the mist on my own and when I'm away I download routes to my watch. After nearly 500 fell races over more than 30 years I get it with the ethos thing, I really do but seriously, things move on, like it or not.

But anyway, the bottom line is that I should have had my map out from the start and not lost touch with it in the first place. Ended up doing over 20km on a race listed as 15km. Shocker!

Results: 25th/26 finishers, 29 started  V60: 2nd/2 (The only MV60 to finish)   Time: 3:01:35

Official Distance: 15km  Climb: 620m

(My distance: 20km  My climb: 810m)

Race 22 of 60 @ 60: Black Combe

12th time on this race and not a PW - that's good, sort of, since it was really quite windy. I didn't struggle with the second climb as much as I had done in previous years and I actually had energy left for the descent but I still didn't make the top half - that's bad - age: the only explanation..

I finished with with 13 BCR's in front of me and 13 behind, but at the front of that group, six people thrashed my PB from 2005. Not only old then, but never as good as I always wished I was. Luke didn't beat my PB but is closing in.

Results: 111th/189  V60: 7th/25  Time 1:50:24
Luke: 64th/189  Time: 1:35:06
Distance: 13km  Climb: 1000m

Race 21 of 60 @ 60: Ilkley Moor

Ilkley seems like a very pleasant town. In fact if it wasn't in Yorkshire, I think I would be able to say that I quite liked the place. The race has a lot in common with my favourite West Pennine races, geologically speaking, so I should do OK, having by now just about recovered from the Long Mynd Valleys.

It turned out that Ilkley Moor was a Yorkshire championship race this year so the competition was pretty hot. The first V60 beat my previous time from 20 years ago by 3 seconds and I was about 8 minutes slower. I'm putting the difference in my own performance down entirely to the exceptionally muddy conditions, although I admit that I did run out of steam a bit in the second half. Kit requirement was just a whistle but I took a hat as well - you never know and we've all heard the story. Nice race map too, an orienteering map colour coded by orienteers for fell runners too daft to understand contours. Love it!

Results: 142nd/264  V60: 5th/20  Time: 1:00:25
Distance: 8km  Climb: 401m

Race 20 of 60 @ 60: High Cup Nick

This was my first and very likely my last go at this race which takes in an interesting route, better enjoyed at a distance of greater than 3 feet from the muddy heels of the person in front. A victim of it's own success perhaps, the event seems to have outgrown the venue. The final details email included amongst a list of dos and don'ts a ban on bare bottoms in the village hall so it's a good thing that it was a nice day and we were able to walk back up to the parking field to get our bits and bobs dried off, having recovered some clean clothes from the overstuffed sheep trailer on the village green.

As to the procession itself - I didn't run well. I was tired on the climb, needed my jelly babies before the top but then being amongst the assorted trail runners, triathletes and top-knot toting millenials, I managed to recover a few places on the descent. On the positive side, the BCR men's team of Josh, Will and Ethan gained a very creditable 4th out of 28 men's teams. 

Results: 225th/411  V60: 17th/38  Time: 1:39:36
Distance: 15km   Climb: 460m

Race 19 of 60 @ 60: Bleasdale Circle

As a pre-1974 Lancastrian who hasn't yet accepted Cumbria as a concept, it's nice to be able to say that I was at home for this one, in the historic County Palatine of Lancaster. And this race pretty much has it all - past Bleasdale Circle on a soggy field and on through a farmyard to the fell gate. A lung bursting climb up to Paddy's Pole, a blistering fast run down to Parlick Fell and terrifically steep descent into another farmyard. More soggy field. 

Conditions weren't bad, all things considered. You couldn't see much in the clag at the top and the mud was as bad as it always is but it wasn't too cold and it wasn't too windy. Disappointed then to be a couple of minutes slower than 10 years ago. Then again, if I'd done a PB I'd have been 4th. So would old Clayton-le-Moors rival Mark Nutter I discovered, as we grumbled at the sticker board over a brew in the hall after the event. That's just what old gits like to do.

No view of Fair Snape Fell

Young 'uns getting slower every year

Results: 46th/103  V60: 3rd/15  Time: 54:27

Distance 8km  Climb: 381m

Race 18 of 60 @ 60: Long Mynd Valleys

I started the the second race of the weekend thinking I'd be happy to finish mid table - no point entertaining hopes of a prize on a race like Long Mynd. On the very first climb out of the Carding Mill Valley my quadriceps made clear what a fanciful idea mid table really was and I turned my thoughts to the timing out cut offs. The route was a new one so by the time I was about a third of the way round the course, having lost sight of the group in front of me, I reached for my map and compass. The rest of the outing was a navigational exercise at a very slow pace, taking perhaps 20 minutes longer than it should have done.

Kath and Chica had a hard day too, meeting me at two points on the route and with Kath having taken a muddy bath not long after setting out. Even Chica seemed to have had enough by the time we met up again in the Church Stretton School car park.

Turns out that two in a weekend is hard. Who'd have thought? I'm coming back from an injury, I raced hard the day before and I'm not great at the longer races anyway - the excuses stack up but it's a disappointing result nonetheless. It would be a great place for a BCR winter racing weekend though, so maybe I'll come back to try one more time.

Runnable between 
checkpoints 2 and 3

Coming away from 11 with Chica
(who didn't run the race with me - not allowed!)

Results: 118th/140  V60: 8th/10  Time: 3:06:40
Distance: 17.7km  Climb: 1300m

Race 17 of 60 @ 60: Titterstione Clee

After two weeks without a race or a proper training run, a course of antibiotics and a pair of compression calf sleeves to hold it all together here we go again. Tittersone Clee is just my sort of race - small and informal, short, and straight up and down. Katie had made the trip from Bristol to take in another race so Kath was out on the course with Chica and Tim was pretending to help.

Trepidatious at first I got into my stride soon enough and arrived at the top with the first lady just in front and Katie not far behind. It's difficult to tell who's a V50 and who's a V60 amongst the veteran men around me so I just went hard as I could to pick off three on the pathless but not too technical descent. Turns out they were all V50's and the bottle of beer is mine! Katie took 2nd Lady and is getting ever closer to beating me. My time was exactly the same as 10 years ago so I don't think I can do much more!

Results: 14th/38  V60: 1st/4  Time: 27:35
Distance: 4.1km  Climb: 229m
Katie: 21st/38  Time: 31:08